Published on 07/06/2025 – 10:57 GMT+2•Updated
12:12

A large Russian attack with drones and missiles has hit Ukraine’s eastern city of Kharkiv on Saturday, killing at least three people and injuring 21, local officials said. The barrage — the latest in near daily widescale attacks — included aerial glide bombs that have become part of a fierce Russian onslaught in the three-year-war .

The intensity of the Russian attacks on Ukraine over the past weeks has further dampened hopes that the warring sides could reach a peace deal anytime soon — especially after Kyiv recently embarrassed the Kremlin with a surprise drone attack on military air bases deep inside Russia.

According to Ukraine’s Air Force, Russia struck with 215 missiles and drones overnight, and Ukrainian air defenses shot down and neutralised 87 drones and seven missiles.

Several other areas in Ukraine were also hit, including the regions of Donetsk, Dnipropetrovsk, Odesa, and the city of Ternopil, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said in a post on X.

“To put an end to Russia’s killing and destruction, more pressure on Moscow is required, as are more steps to strengthen Ukraine,” he said.

Kharkiv’s mayor Ihor Terekhov said the attack also damaged 18 apartment buildings and 13 private homes. Terekhov said it was “the most powerful attack” on the city since the full-scale invasion in 2022.

Kharkiv’s regional governor Oleh Syniehubov said two districts in the city were struck with three missiles, five aerial glide bombs and 48 drones. Among the injured were two children, a month and a half year old baby boy and a 14-year old girl, he added.

The attack on Kharkiv comes one day after Russia launched one of the fiercest missile and drone barrages on Ukraine, striking six Ukrainian territories and killing at least killing at least six people and injuring about 80. Among the dead were three emergency responders in Kyiv, one person in Lutsk and two people in Chernihiv.

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian Air Force said it shot down a Russian Su-35 fighter jet on the Kursk front inside Russia, the Ukrainian daily Ukrainskaia Pravda reported. No more details were given immediately.

U.S. President Donald Trump said this week that his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, told him Moscow would respond to Ukraine’s attack on Russian military airfields last Sunday with “Operation Spiderweb”

In a new statement bound to cause offense in Kyiv and amongst its allies, Trump told journalists on board Air Force One on Friday evening local time when asked about “Operation Spiderweb”:

“They gave Putin a reason to go in and bomb the hell out of them last night. That’s the thing I didn’t like about it. When I saw it I said ‘Here we go, now it’s going to be a strike’.”

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German Chancellor Friedrich Merz told President Donald Trump he is in a “strong position” to stop Russia’s war in Ukraine, to which the president suggested maybe the world needs to “let them fight for a little while.”

“America is again in a very strong position to do something on this war and ending this war,” Merz said, while also referencing the U.S.’s role in ending World War II on the eve of the anniversary of D-Day, which marked the turn of events that led to the defeat of Nazi Germany. “So let’s talk about what we can do jointly, and we are ready to do what we can.”

Merz called for more pressure to be placed on Russia in coordination with European allies. 

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Trump responded by providing an analogy of two kids fighting, and suggested perhaps it was “too early” to break up the fight between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

“Sometimes you see two young children fighting like crazy – they hate each other, and they’re fighting in a park, and you try and pull them apart, they don’t want to be pulled,” Trump said.  “Sometimes you’re better off letting them fight for a while and then pulling them apart.”

Trump said he gave that analogy to Putin in his call with him on Wednesday and said he told the Kremlin chief “maybe you’re going to have to keep fighting and suffering a lot.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin in Moscow on April 7, 2025. (Vyacheslav Prokofyev, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)

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Reporters asked Merz, who has been an ardent supporter of Ukraine and recently lifted Germany’s existing strike bans, if he agrees with Trump that “fighting it out” was the way to proceed. 

“I think we both agree on this war and how terrible this war is. And we are both looking for ways to stop it very soon,” Merz said. “I told the president before we came in that he is the key person in the world who can really do that now by putting pressure on Russia, and we will have this debate later on again, how we can proceed jointly between the Europeans and the Americans. 

European leaders, from left, Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, French President Emmanuel Macron, Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz, hold a telephone conversation with President Trump at the 6th European Political Community summit on May 16, 2025, at Skanderbeg Square in Tirana, Albania. (KuglerSteffen/Bundesregierung via Getty Images)

“I think we are all… having the duty to do something on that now, to stop it after three and a half years, which is really terrible,” he added, making it clear without directly contradicting the president that he did not agree with Trump. 

“We are on the side of Ukraine, and we are trying to get them stronger and stronger just to make Putin stop this war. This is our approach,” Merz added.